


L'eternità per me sei tu

by JuliaBaggins



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: And Betelgeuse becomes a Supernova, Do I need to tag major character death for those two?, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Romance, Stars, There's a terrorist attack mentioned, This takes place over the whole span of their relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25315882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/pseuds/JuliaBaggins
Summary: Nicky always has loved the stars. And over the years, those stars become witnesses of Nicky and Joe falling in love with each other.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 34
Kudos: 349





	L'eternità per me sei tu

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the movie yesterday and oh my goodness, I barely could think of anything else ever since! 😮😍
> 
> And as I love the stars, I decided to write a little fic where Nicky does so too 🤭

Nicolo di Genova had always loved the stars. His grandmother used to tell him, him who sat on her lap and looked up at her with big bright eyes while she told her stories, that in the night he was born, she had seen a shooting star, and that back then she knew that her newborn grandson would grow up to be a special person. If that was true, little Nicolo couldn’t have said, he felt no more and no less special than his friends that he used to run through the dusty streets with under a bright Italian summer sun. But what staid with him was his love for the stars. 

After his grandmother had passed away, he still remembered the few stars she always had pointed out to him, the ones that were especially bright, and he always used to look at them. From the tiny window in their house, during his nightly walks on open fields outside of the city, the stars always were there. Were there when tears ran down his face, no matter how hard he tried to fight them, at the memory of the things that his friends had snarled at him, after getting the impression that Nicolo had been looking at one of them for too long while they had been out swimming. And the stars were the silent witness when out there, in the lonesome darkness, Nicolo admitted to himself that yes, he had been looking at his friend. At his body, his muscles, and he forbid himself to think about the reason for why that might have been. Instead, he kicked a stone on the path a few times, and then looked up at the stars, tried to remember the names that his grandmother had told him for them. Everything to take his mind into safer waters.

The stars also were sparkling above when he said goodbye to his family; a goodbye that would turn out to be as final as they had feared, even if for different reasons. Nicolo was wearing his new tunic already, the dark cross being visible against the white linen even in the spare light of the night, and there was pride in his father’s eyes when he laid his hand on Nicolo’s shoulder. His mother cried as she hugged him tight, his little sisters laughed, and one of them pointed up, to the evening star shining down brightly from the endless sky above their house.

“Will you see the stars too, where you’re going?”, she asked, and Nicolo became aware that he’d miss nothing as much as his sisters’ curious questions. 

“Yes. The stars shine everywhere on God’s grand earth, and you always can find some comfort while looking up at them”, he said with a warm smile, and then, turned around. 

Turned away from his family, and towards a future that would prove to be so much longer than he ever could have imagined.

On the way to the Holy Land, Nicolo sometimes could be found looking up at the sky at night; ignoring the missing comfort that his thin blanket provided him with, and preferring their familiarity to the confusion that his dreams brought with them these days. They weren’t quite the nightmares he would have expected, about the upcoming battles and the looming death, no. Instead, he saw a man in his dreams. The same man, always, though in different settings – sometimes the man was riding into battle, sometimes sitting in the shade under a palm tree, and always, _always_ , Nicolo woke up remembering his eyes. Those captivating eyes, like two dark stars looking at him out of a face that he never had seen before, and that yet seemed to be more familiar than those of the soldiers riding by his side day after day.

It was three days after the begin of the battle that Nicolo crossed swords with the stranger, the man from his dreams, and it didn’t take them long to kill each other. Again. And again. Nicolo had no explanation for what was happening, for why he woke up from wounds that should have been lethal, wounds that no one should recover from, least of all in mere minutes. But what he knew was that it was not just him. That whenever he came back to his senses, the other man did too. And so they fought each other. For days, nights, until both of them had lost count about how often they had killed each other. 

On the fifth day of their fighting, Nicolo once again died, without knowing that for at least a little while, this would be the last time.

When he had sunken to the sandy ground after the stranger - the stranger who somehow, miraculously, was still alive, just as he was - had embedded his sword deep into his chest, the pain had been as bad as it was every time, taking his breath away, and the sky above had begun to darken. Nicolo didn’t know how long it took exactly, but once he came back to his senses, the night fully had embraced the desert, the only thing fighting against it being a small campfire. A fire at which, to his great surprise, Nicolo found the stranger. The one who had been killing him for days, whom he had killed often enough to get confused in his counting, and now, he just sat there. Watching him. Once he noticed that Nicolo was awake, his shoulders tensed, but he made no movement towards his sword leaning against the rock that he was sitting on. 

For a long time, the two men stared at each other, and Nicolo was not sure if he would have moved when he did, hadn’t it been for the wind that picked up and caused him to shiver under his clothes that had been torn by multiple deadly wounds. Hesitatingly, he stood up, stretching his sore limbs, and walked over to the fire. The other man moved his arm, and Nicolo’s fingers itched to close around the hilt of his sword, but before he had the opportunity to even do so, he saw that there wasn’t a weapon being held by those fingers. No, instead, it was.. a small object, Nicolo couldn’t see it clearly, maybe a fruit? He raised a questioning eyebrow, and the other man’s face softened minimally.

“Fico”, he explained in Italian, showing Nicolo the fig, and then added a lightly accented “Delizioso.”

Nicolo’s hesitation wavered, and he took the offered fruit, feeling how hungry and even more so how thirsty he had been only when the soft juice filled his mouth.

“Grazie”, he declared in a low voice, and for the first time, came witness to a smile spreading on lips that he would grow to love.

“Io sono Yusuf Al-Kaysani”, the man, Yusuf, declared, and Nicolo nodded before offering his own name in exchange.

After that, they both ended up sitting down, eating more figs, all in silence. The questions in Nicolo’s head were too big to be framed into words just yet, and judged by the way that Yusuf’s eyes sometimes passed over his bloodstained shirt in wonder, he didn’t seem to have answers either. So they said nothing, and Nicolo looked up, letting his eyes wander over the stars, until settling on a bright one close to the horizon.

Yusuf must have noticed where his gaze went, for he pointed towards the star, and then said in a low voice: “Altair.”

“Altair?”, Nicolo repeated, and he wouldn’t have needed the grin flashing over Yusuf’s features to hear how off his pronunciation was. 

“Sì”, Yusuf nodded, with another smile, and then continued to tell Nicolo the names of a few other stars in his language.

Nicolo just listened, repeated them, and somehow, it didn’t quite feel like a night spent side by side with an enemy.

The stars were silent witnesses to more nights that Nicolo and Yusuf spent in each other’s company, for years, for centuries, and some of them were peaceful, nearly magical. Like the night in which they had first kissed, sitting side by side in moist grass, looking up into the sky, and when Nicolo had tilted his head to the side, to look at his companion, Yusuf’s hand had oh so softly touched his cheek. Their eyes met, and once again, the sparkle somewhere deep inside Yusuf’s dark eyes made Nicolo think of the stars. Only that his friend’s eyes were so much more beautiful. The kiss started out gentle, both of them leaning in at the same time, and then quickly turned heated, tongues meeting each other, Yusuf’s beard scratching Nicolo’s face, Nicolo’s hands slipping under the other man’s shirt, to draw him closer closer closer. And ever since then, both of them knew that they not only would spend an eternity together, but also that they _belonged_ together. 

Some other nights though, they weren’t as peaceful, and one that turned out unexpectedly terrible happened more than 800 years later, on a green island surrounded by a cold wild ocean.

They hadn't even been on a mission, just enjoying the warm summer night after one of the spare free days that they just had for themselves, when it happened. Later, they would read about it in the newspaper, about the terrorist and the splitter bomb, but for then, all Nicky knew was that an impact of unknown nature had thrown him through the air for quite a few meters, and that he had landed on hard concrete. Both the force of that and the pain he could feel all over his chest, the splitters he could feel tearing himself open, would have been enough to kill him, and he wished that they did. But for now, Nicky was alive, raspingly trying to catch his breath while a rain of dust fell around him and screams tore through the formerly so beautiful silence of the night.

Joe and him had been walking close to each other when everything went down - not close enough to raise suspicion, not touching each other, but yet close, and Nicky would have expected his partner to be somewhere close by, but so far, he wasn't.

"J-", Nicky tried, but speaking felt like getting his chest cut open again, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

In the distance, Nicky could hear the footsteps of people running around, screaming for help, cursing, calling names with growing desperation in their hearts. And finally, after what seemed to have been ages, he could make out a familiar voice.

"Nicky!", and it was far away, so far away, and yet so close to his soul that he heard Joe as clearly as if the other man had been whispering into his ear. "Nicolo!"

"He-", a cough shook through Nicky's torn body, enabling him from speaking more, but it had been enough. Of course it had been.

Joe was by his side in seconds, falling to his knees while his dark eyes took in his lover's bleeding chest. He swallowed, heavily, before resting a hand gently in Nicky's hair, and oh, how Nicky could understand him. Seeing the person that you love die would never leave one unaffected, no matter if one had seen it once or a hundred or a thousand times before. It always hurt, and there always was that small possibility, the fear, that this might be the final blow. That for once, death wouldn’t let go his victim again. With huge effort, Nicky moved his lips into a little smile, one he hoped to be reassuring, before another heavy cough shook through his body, and then, with Joe's face in front of the night sky being the last thing he saw, Nicky died.

He woke up still feeling the echoes of pain rushing through his body, the places where his chest had been torn open, but at the same time, Nicky felt warm, and _safe_. And he didn't need to open his eyes to find the reason for this, wouldn't even have needed the familiar smell surrounding him, he just _knew_ that he was with Joe, deep inside his heart that belonged to the other man so fully.

"Ciao", Nicky whispered softly, while burying his face deeper into Joe's warm chest.

“Bentornato, amore mio”, Joe told against his hair, tightening his arms around Nicky’s body.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. But, a terrorist, probably. As far as I could tell, the explosion took place in a pub across the street from where we were walking.”

“Fuck”, Nicky exclaimed, and Joe just nodded.

“I helped carrying some people out of the bar, but, it was too late for a few of them.”

“You did all you could, habibi”, Nicky’s fingers found the soft hairs at the base of Joe’s neck, softly stroking it, “Did you get hurt?”

“Some piece of wood embedded itself into my leg and it broke, but nothing bad. You had it way worse, Nicky.”

“That’s not how I imagined this night to go.”

“Oh? Did you have plans?”, and the teasing in Joe’s voice caused Nicky to chuckle.

“Ah, maybe I did. Just you and me, somewhere alone in the park-“

“Hmm, I like where this is going”, Joe nearly purred into Nicky’s ear.

“- watching the lunar eclipse. Though now we’ve missed it.”

That hadn't quite been what Joe expected, and yet he smiled fondly.

“I’m sorry we did, tesoro. But there’ll be another. And yet another. We can gaze at the moon and the stars for centuries to come, I promise you.”

“You know I never tire of watching the stars with you. But, for now”, Nicky’s lips danced above Joe’s, “I can think of something I’d like to do even more”, and he kissed him.

Joe melted into the kiss, before his hands started wandering over Nicky’s skin, caressing him just as much as reassuring himself that his love really was alright. And when they were sinking into each other’s arms around an hour later, exhausted yet happy, Nicky knew that the stars in Joe’s eyes were shining just for him.

Time passed, years came and went away, and then, suddenly, eternity seemed to be a bit shorter than it always had. The perspective that Andy wouldn’t be there with them forever shook both Nicky and Joe deep to their hearts; and they both hugged her a bit tighter than usual, before saying goodbye for a little break, in which they all planned to lay low and gather their strengths while Copley would prepare everything he could to turn them invisible. 

Nicky and Joe found themselves in a little house in Portugal, resting on top of a cliff with a breathtaking view over the Atlantic Ocean. And after a few calm days they had spent there, when Nicky had just curled up on the sofa with a novel and a glass of chianti, he suddenly heard a shout from outsides.

“Nicolo!”, Joe screamed, and Nicky jumped up from the sofa, not even noticing the wine that spilled onto the sofa and his sweater.

While running outside, Nicky readied his gun, prepared to defend his love from whoever might dare to interrupt their holiday. He spotted Joe near the edge of the cliff, standing absolutely motionless. But not with a gun pointed to his head that would have caused him to still, no – actually, there was no danger visible anywhere around. And yet, something was.. off. Utterly out of the ordinary, and it took Nicky a moment to realize that it was the light. It was too bright for this time of the day, and finally, it made sense.

Nicky spotted the reason why Joe stood there so frozen, and his mouth fell open. While the sun already had started to vanish into the dark waves, there was another light at the sky, illuminating Joe’s face when Nicky stepped up to him. It was a star, it had to be, and it was the brightest star Nicky had seen in all of his life.

“Ma che cazzo..?!?”, it escaped Nicky’s lips, while his mind already supplied him with a possible explanation, one that would be rather exciting.

“Yad al-ǧauzā”, Joe whispered, and Nicky smiled at the memory of how Joe had first taught him that name of the star nowadays known as Betelgeuse, all those centuries ago in the desert.

“So it really happened? She turned into a supernova?”

Joe confirmed that with a nod, and Nicky took a deep breath, while staring at the bright light of the dying star above them. The two men admired it in silence for a moment, and when their hands touched, Nicky’s fingers closed tightly around Joe’s, before he turned towards his love.

"There aren’t many things we haven’t done in our lives so far, but I've never kissed you under the light of an exploding star before."

"And yet your kisses have made my heart feel like an exploding star for a thousand years already", Joe replied without wasting a second, and Nicky’s heart felt as if it was melting.

They kissed, slowly, deeply, laying all of the love they felt for each other into their kiss, and after what seemed to have been eternities, their lips separated, and they rested their foreheads together. Nicky cupped Joe’s face with his fingers, softly ran them through his beard, and got lost in his eyes, which still were as captivating as they had been a thousand years ago.

"You're missing the spectacle, amore mio", Joe remarked, gesturing towards the supernova in the sky above them, and yet, despite his words, his eyes were as fixed on Nicky as Nicky’s were on him.

"Oh no, you can be assured that I'm not", Nicky answered with a smirk, his eyes still fixed on nothing but Joe’s face, and he witnessed how a gentle smile appeared on his love’s lips at that.

“And you call me the hopeless romantic”, Joe chuckled, before drawing Nicky in for another kiss.

Above them, a dying star was lightening the sky, and in their hearts, both Nicky and Joe knew that some day, a day that was far away, but that still might happen, they would die too, just like Betelgeuse did above them. But it didn’t matter. Not when for now, they were alive, were happy, were _together_ (though those last two had come to equal each other a long time ago already). And not when they knew that even if they’d die one day, their love would be stronger than even death. For it shone brighter than all the stars that ever embellished the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments would be most amazing ❤️
> 
> The title is from Fabrizio Moro's song "L'eternità", it seemed quite fitting to me ☺️
> 
> And I know that the risk of Betelgeuse turning into a Supernova isn't as high anymore as it seemed in February, but I still liked the idea, since that would be such a huge spectacle to see 👀


End file.
